‘Hey, Vamenos, you sure look sharp!’ Distantly, a woman’s voice called from across the street.
Vamenos smiled and buttoned his coat.
‘It’s Ramona Alvarez! Ramona, wait!’ Vamenos stepped off the curb.
‘Vamenos,’ pleaded Gomez. ‘What can you do in one minute and –’ he checked his watch. ‘Forty seconds!’
‘Watch! Hey, Ramona!’
Vamenos loped.
‘Vamenos, look out!’
Vamenos, surprised, whirled, saw a car, heard the shriek of brakes.
‘No,’ said all five men on the sidewalk.
Martinez heard the impact and flinched. His head moved up. It looks like white laundry, he thought, flying through the air. His head came down.
Now he heard himself and each of the men make a different sound. Some swallowed too much air. Some let it out. Some choked. Some groaned. Some cried aloud for justice. Some covered their faces. Martinez felt his own fist pounding his heart in agony. He could not move his feet.
‘I don’t want to live,’ said Gomez quietly. ‘Kill me, someone.’
Then, shuffling, Martinez looked down and told his feet to walk, stagger, follow one after the other. He collided with other men. Now they were trying to run. They ran at last and somehow crossed a street like a deep river through which they could only wade, to look down at Vamenos.
‘Vamenos!’ said Martinez. ‘You’re alive!’
Strewn on his back, mouth open, eyes squeezed tight, tight, Vamenos motioned his head back and forth, back and forth, moaning.
‘Tell me, tell me, oh tell me, tell me.’
‘Tell you what, Vamenos?’
Vamenos clenched his fists, ground his teeth.
‘The suit, what have I done to the suit, the suit, the suit!’
The men crouched lower.
‘Vamenos, it’s … why, it’s okay !’
‘You lie!’ said Vamenos. ‘If s torn, it must be, it must be, it’s torn, all round, underneath?’
‘No.’ Martinez knelt and touched here and there. ‘Vamenos, all around, underneath even, it’s okay!’
Vamenos opened his eyes to let the tears run free at last. ‘A miracle,’ he sobbed. ‘Praise the saints!’ He quieted at last. ‘The car?’
‘Hit and run.’ Gomez suddenly remembered and glared at the empty street. ‘It’s good he didn’t stop. We’d have –’
Everyone listened.
Distantly, a siren wailed.
‘Someone phoned for an ambulance.’
‘Quick!’ said Vamenos, eyes rolling. ‘Set me up! Take off our coat!’
‘Vamenos –’
‘Shut up, idiots!’ cried Vamenos. ‘The coat, that’s it! Now, the pants, the pants, quick, quick, peónes ! Those doctors! You seen movies? They rip the pants with razors to get them off! They don’t care ! They’re maniacs! Ah, God, quick, quick!’
The siren screamed.
The men, panicking, all handled Vamenos at once.
‘Right leg, easy, hurry, cows! Good! Left leg, now, left, you hear, there, easy, easy ! Ow, God! Quick! Martinez, your pants, take them off!’
‘What?’ Martinez froze.
The siren shrieked.
‘Fool!’ wailed Vamenos. ‘All is lost! Your pants! Give me!’
Martinez jerked at his belt-buckle.
‘Close in, make a circle!’
Dark pants, light pants, flourished on the air.
‘Quick, here come the maniacs with the razors! Right leg on, left leg, there!’
‘The zipper, cows, zip my zipper!’ babbled Vamenos.
The siren died.
‘Madre mía, yes, just in time! They arrive.’ Vamenos lay back down and shut his eyes. ‘Gracias.’
Martinez turned, nonchalantly buckling on the white pants as the internes brushed past.
‘Broken leg,’ said one interne as they moved Vamenos on to a stretcher.
‘Compadres,’ said Vamenos, ‘don’t be mad with me.’
Gomez snorted. ‘Who’s mad?’
In the ambulance, head tilted back, looking out at them upside down, Vamenos faltered.
‘Compadres, when … when I come from the hospital … am I still in the bunch? You won’t kick me out? Look, I’ll give up smoking, keep away from Murillo’s, swear off women –’
‘Vamenos,’ said Martinez gently, ‘don’t promise nothing.’
Vamenos, upside-down, eyes brimming wet, saw Martinez there, all white now against the stars.
‘Oh, Martinez, you sure look great in that suit. Compadres, don’t he look beautiful?’
Villanazul climbed in beside Vamenos. The door slammed. The four remaining men watched the ambulance drive away.
Then, surrounded by his friends, inside the white suit, Martinez was carefully escorted back to the kerb.
In the tenement, Martinez got out the cleaning fluid and the others stood around, telling him how to clean the suit and later, how not to have the iron too hot and how to work the lapels and the crease and all. When the suit was cleaned and pressed so it looked like a fresh gardenia just opened, they fitted it to the dummy.
‘Two o’clock,’ murmured Villanazul. ‘I hope Vamenos sleeps well. When I left him, he looked good.’
Manulo cleared his throat. ‘Nobody else is going out with that suit tonight, huh?’
The others glared at him.
Manulo flushed. ‘I mean … it’s late. We’re tired. Maybe no one will use the suit for forty-eight hours, huh? Give it a rest. Sure. Well. Where do we sleep?’
The night being still hot and the room unbearable, they carried the suit on its dummy out and down the hall. They brought with them also some pillows and blankets. They climbed the stairs towards the roof of the tenement. There, thought Martinez, is die cooler wind, and sleep.
On the way, they passed a dozen doors that stood open, people still perspiring and awake, playing cards, drinking pop, fanning themselves with movie magazines.
I wonder, thought Martinez. I wonder if – yes!
On the fourth floor, a certain door stood open.
The beautiful girl looked up as the five men passed. She wore glasses and when she saw Martinez she snatched them off and hid them under a book.
The others went on, not knowing they had lost Martinez who seemed stuck fast in the open door.
For a long moment he could say nothing. Then he said:
‘José Martinez.’
And she said:
‘Celia Obregon.’
And then both said nothing.
He heard the men moving up on the tenement roof. He moved to follow.
She said, quickly, ‘I saw you tonight!’
He came back.